Traitor's Knot by Janny Wurts Page A

forehead in soothing folds of wet cloth. ‘I’ll help attend to his Exalted Self. He is freed, but not likely to stay conscious.’
    â€˜You don’t look much better,’ said the servant, distraught. He shuddered, exclaiming, ‘Merciful Light! Just what manner of foul apparition did you banish?’
    The Alliance Lord Commander stared back, battered blank.
    Wordless, the valet struggled with his wrecked poise. His large hands were shaking, and his chattering teeth hampered his stumbling speech. ‘There were
things
, icy cold, crowding outside that circle. Unearthly, ill spirits, and Sithaer knows what else.’
    â€˜You didn’t bolt,’ Sulfin Evend pointed out.
    The prince’s serving-man brushed off the praise. ‘His Blessed Grace has been unwell for some time. What else could I do, except stand by your word, that those horrors were sent here to claim him?’
    â€˜Well, they failed!’ Jabbed to vicious distaste for the fact he could not subduehis own trembling, Sulfin Evend realized the prince had gone limp. The gold head lolled, hot and damp, on his shoulder, while the skin cut he had made at the navel dripped blood with sullen persistence. ‘Your master’s ill, now. He requires our cosseting. Meantime, I don’t wish to burn for a sorcerer’s workings in Erdane! We’ve got this chamber to set back to rights. No one must see what’s occurred here.’
    While the anxious servant took charge of Lysaer, Sulfin Evend untangled his legs, stood erect, and forced his unsteady feet to bear weight long enough to rub out the spent circles. Next, he recovered the spoiled silk that contained the bowl shards and bone-knife, scrounged up a coffer, and dumped out its load of state jewellery. After he had secured the ill-fated bundle under lock and key, he towelled himself dry and wrestled back into his breeches and shirt. The valet was no slacker. By then he had the unconscious prince bathed and groomed, and installed in warmed comfort on the bed.
    Lysaer himself remained senseless throughout. Until he roused in his collected, right mind, his keepers could do nothing more than watch and guardedly wait.
    As the windows were thrown open to dispel the herb smoke and the rug was spread over the scuffed flooring, the valet exchanged a tenuous glance with the Alliance Lord Commander. Neither man spoke. The next trial was inevitable. Until Lysaer recovered, they would have to fend off the mayor’s house staff, and worse, the inquisitive pressure applied by Erdane’s ambitious officials.
    For that, Sulfin Evend chose to rely on the battle-trained wits of his field captain. ‘No one else will come in,’ he assured the stressed servant. ‘There’s not another damned thing we can do but try our utmost to maintain appearances.’
    Wrung out and tired enough to fall down, the Alliance Lord Commander left Lysaer’s bedside and unbarred the shut door to the antechamber. No help for the fact he looked washed to his socks; raked over by the avid, curious eyes of the men under orders to keep vigil till dawn, he could but hope that the room at his back revealed nothing more than the brushed gold head of divinity, lying at peace on the pillows.
    Still alert, his ranking officer stepped forth, expecting the word to stand down.
    Sulfin Evend spoke fast to stall questions. ‘Send every-one back. The crisis is over. We’re into convalescent recovery, but for that, the prince must have quiet.’ He finished his orders in a lowered voice. ‘The page and the chamber servant must stay here in seclusion. I won’t have them abroad to spread idle talk. Let your day sergeant assign that detail. He’s capable. You are not excused, meanwhile. I plan to sleep here in Lysaer’s close company. This door remains tightly guarded, throughout. Not so much as a rumour slips by you. Have I made my needs understood?’
    â€˜No one comes